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Ask HN: Single-person company exit

163 points| michaeloblak | 9 years ago | reply

Can anyone share an experience from selling a self-founded, single-person company?

Topic is created because of a comment in this[1] thread

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12065355

78 comments

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[+] thomasbachem|9 years ago|reply
I've built Germany's biggest online resume editor (https://lebenslauf.com), which started as a side project next to my main startup.

Some years ago a friend asked me to help her out with her resume, how to convert it into a proper PDF file etc. – busy and short of time as I was, I simply looked for some online tool to point her to.

Disappointed by the results of my search back then (2011) and motivated to fully design, code and market a small project on my own (after all those years mostly doing management), I started Lebenslauf.com and quickly got fascinated by the idea and technical challenges of a WYSIWYG CV editor.

For quite some time, it remained a side project where I'd spend about 4 hours per week maximum. Meanwhile the number of users grew slowly but steadily thanks to word-of-mouth from my friends and their friends and their friends...

After I sold my main startup in 2012, I finally found the time and fully realized the huge potential of Lebenslauf.com. So I started making it my main project in 2013 and at some point charged money for the created PDF files, which instantly led to five-figure revenues.

About one year later (2014), I sold it to https://xing.com (public company, essentially the German LinkedIn) for a higher seven-digit figure. I managed to get competing bids for it from multiple companies, so the whole sale process is a story of its own.

It's still astonishing to see what has grown out of it and how many people use it every day, and it was an exciting journey with totally different experiences than a venture-funded company.

[+] TheBiv|9 years ago|reply
>> I managed to get competing bids for it from multiple companies, so the whole sale process is a story of its own.

I am interested in hearing this story! :) Thank you for the original comment as well!

[+] cloudjacker|9 years ago|reply
the irony (to people in this industry) is that if it was a venture funded company you would have made less to no money from that exit
[+] luckystrike|9 years ago|reply
Fantastic! Thanks for sharing your experience here. We are also bootstrapping a similar product (https://www.resumonk.com) and it's been a great ride so far.

Can we get in touch with you and exchange notes? You are planning to launch an English version, so we might be competitors in near future. But I'm sure it's a big market and there is enough room for all of us. :-)

[+] OoTheNigerian|9 years ago|reply
What an awesome site!

Why didn't you have this in English?!!!! it would have been so much bigger than it was!

[+] cl42|9 years ago|reply
Not quite a single-person exit but I think Plenty of Fish [1] is a great story -- one guy builds dating site, bootstraps to 75 people, sells for $575M with 100% ownership.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/how-markus-frind-bootstrapped...

[+] blahi|9 years ago|reply
I remember how this guy came to a forum and asked whether starting a dating site would be a good idea. Everybody said "no".
[+] jchendy|9 years ago|reply
Doesn't it seem like kind of a dick move to give no equity to any of the 75 employees?
[+] lucasgonze|9 years ago|reply
I have. DM/email me ([email protected]) if you want to chat.

My company was Webjay, a playlist-sharing site. No funding, no other devs. 500K users, 10 million page views / month.

Selling was dramatically easier than ordinary because I was getting the whole pie, not a slice, and because I had no investors to placate. I did not get FU rich, and I still have to work, but my quality of life was dramatically improved for the rest of my life.

The hardest deal term in the acquisition was indemnification. I refused to indemnify the acquirer, they insisted on it. Finally I said:

1. If we don't have enough personal trust in this relationship for you to believe in my company's practices, you shouldn't enter this deal at all. And if you do, indemnification doesn't matter.

2. You are a more attractive target than me. Many people would sue you who wouldn't bother with me.

It was harder post-acquisition than ordinary, because I was a faction of one within the acquirer (yahoo).

[+] vram22|9 years ago|reply
Interesting story. Indemnify for what?
[+] gnicholas|9 years ago|reply
Your point number 2 is really creative. Did they go for it? Or did they counter that just because people wouldn't sue you (assuming that you don't have deep pockets) doesn't mean that there isn't valid stuff there to indemnify?

Regardless, kudos on thinking up such a creative argument—in many years of lawyering, I've never heard that one.

[+] toyg|9 years ago|reply
I was a total Webjay fanboi! I loved to let other people find new weird music for me...

I remember you being pretty knowledgeable on the "scene" back then -- what would you recommend today to do what webjay used to? Spotify is very curated and doesn't feel spontaneous at all, whereas Youtube is an unbrowseable cauldron of shit.

[+] stevesearer|9 years ago|reply
Been running https://officesnapshots.com for 9 years and I haven't sold it or exited, though I have had various offers of varying seriousness throughout the years.

At this point it would be hard for me to see myself selling because I really enjoy running the site. Plus it would feel strange to let someone else do whatever they want with the thing I've created and spent so much time on.

Not saying I wouldn't sell, but I wonder if many other single-person companies are in the same boat and feel the same way. Would love to hear :)

[+] Someone1234|9 years ago|reply
That's a great site, I love the design and utility.

I have a question: Where do the photos actually come from? Do you yourself run around taking pictures of people's offices? Or do you work with the designers to be featured on the site? How did you initially source your images, get the copyright to show them, in order to entice the designers to work with you?

[+] mandeepj|9 years ago|reply
Wow! Your site has a great design
[+] hkmurakami|9 years ago|reply
Marco Armwnt selling Instapaper is fairly well documented.
[+] dhruvkar|9 years ago|reply
hey michael, OP of the referenced post. Heavy user of gdrive here, hope you're not looking to sell sheetsu just yet, we have some use cases coming for it in the next few months. :)
[+] michaeloblak|9 years ago|reply
No, I'm not planning to sell https://sheetsu.com, no worries. It's not worth that much yet. I'm just curious if solopreneurs are selling their companies and if yes, how did they do it. Or if they keep it and profit.

P.S. I'm eager to talk about your use cases for the coming months. You can find my email on the website mentioned above.

[+] hoodoof|9 years ago|reply
The question is, if you have a company worth selling and you are a single owner and founder, is there any way to build the perception of high value, similar to the valuation perceptions created for venture backed startups?
[+] HappyTypist|9 years ago|reply
Yes. Hire a PR company, pump out your metrics, and optimize for short term revenue / profit growth.
[+] mbesto|9 years ago|reply
I've helped several buyers of 2-4 man companies (mainly SaaS). Feel free to reach out.
[+] xur17|9 years ago|reply
I have. Happy to discuss if you want to shoot me an email (in profile).